Susan Mokelke, J.D.In this article I hope to surface some ofthe issues involved in ethical shamanichealing, as well as to provide some basicguidelines. As with most decisions involvingquestions of ethical behavior, thiscommentary is not intended as rigid policy,but rather as a flexible standard to be consideredthoughtfully and compassionatelyin each particular case. It is hoped that thismight be a starting place for those beginninga shamanic practice, as well as anopportunity for experienced practitioners todeepen their own understanding.1Shamanic practitioners are partof an ancient lineage of spiritual healers.Since shamanic healing is a form of spiritualhealing, the question of ethics is ofparticular importance. When MichaelHarner began offering training in CoreShamanism in the seventies, shamanichealing was relatively unknown. Thanksto the success of his pioneering work,today thousands of people worldwidepractice shamanic healing, and thereis currently considerable interest inguidelines for the principled use of thispowerful method.For those who practice shamanichealing with clients face-to-face the ethicalresponsibilities regarding appropriatephysical contact are similar to those ofa therapist. Confidentiality, too, mustbe strictly observed. Any informationreceived from the client or during theshamanic session must be kept private.Because shamanic healing deals withthe spiritual aspect of illness, the parametersof ethical practice often seem undulybroad, vague, and imprecise. What ispermissible at the level of spiritual healing?What about “distance” healingsoffered by individuals, groups, and drummingcircles – where the person, place, orsituation being healed may be miles or acontinent away?Those who have been involved inshamanic healing or divination for anylength of time, either as practitioners oras recipients, know that it is powerful.Miracles of healing can and do occur. Difficultquestions are answered in surprisingand useful ways; problems that seemnearly impossible to resolve suddenlyshift and elegant solutions appear. Thispower deserves our respect and seriousconsideration about where and how it isused.In shamanic healing, to use thepower of the helping spirits consciouslyand compassionately so that the workwe do will in fact be healing; there is oneessential ethical requirement: permission.Permission means the express, informedconsent of the client for a specific individualor group to perform shamanic healingor divination – including the consent todisclose any information about the client.Healing without permission isunethical and strays into the realm ofsorcery. It is unethical because each personhas the right and the responsibilityto decide what to do in matters of his orher own soul. Each person has the rightto choose their path without interferenceor undue influence. It doesn’t matterhow clear it is that the person needs helpor how sure you are that “they wouldgrant permission.” Unless you havebeen asked, or you have asked and beengranted permission, you must not do thework.Those who are drawn to healing typicallyhave a deep desire to help others.It can be very tempting when you seesomeone suffering, and know that thisperson could be helped, to quickly askthe helping spirits for a healing withoutthe person ever knowing anything aboutit.But none of us is wise enough toknow what another’s soul wants orneeds. I’ve heard practitioners say thatif the helping spirits say it is all right toheal someone, then it is OK even if youdon’t have the person’s permission. This isnot ethical – first because you should notask the helping spirits until you have permission;and, secondly the helping spiritsmay be all-knowing, but we as humansare all too fallible, subject to errors ofinterpretation as well as to hearing whatwe want to hear.

Informed consent means that in ordinaryreality the person who will receivethe work knows, at the very least, thatyou will be offering spiritual healing andthat you will be working with helpingspirits on their behalf. If the healing isto be face-to-face, it is important to letthe person know that there may be somephysical contact and to ask them if it is allright to touch them if necessary duringthe healing session.Express permission means that theperson has asked you for healing or youhave asked them and they have said, “Yes.”If the person is alive and conscious, thismeans a direct ordinary reality “yes.” Itdoes not mean that you asked them in adream or in a journey or telepathically,or asked your power animal or teacher,or that you had your power animal asktheir power animal, and so on.If a person is in a coma, permissionshould be obtained from the immediatefamily in order to do shamanic work.Even then, the person’s soul should becontacted in the journey to ask whatwork, if any, he or she wishes to bedone.In the case of deceased persons, forpsychopomp work or other shamanichealing involving souls, permission isstill required. Souls are souls, livingor dead. When journeying to help adeceased person, their soul should beasked what, if anything, it wants done.For shamanic healing work performedon behalf of children under aboutthe age of twelve, you should have aparent’s, preferably both parents’, permission.On a case-by-case basis, dependingupon the maturity of the child, you mayalso need permission from the child.Where healing is done with the childpresent, the child should have shamanichealing explained to them in a mannerappropriate to their age and one or bothparents should be present during thesession. For most teenagers under 18, justas for adults, express permission of theteen as well as a parent is required for shamanichealing.Within a healing session, clients willsometimes ask questions or make requestsabout another person. Remember, youmay only work with the client; you donot have permission to work with theclient’s spouse, relatives, or anyone else associatedwith the client. I.e., you may notask for information about another personor offer healing to another person.Most of the time, clients will cometo you with a specific request for healingfor an injury, illness, emotional problem,or for divination help for a particulardifficulty in their lives. For example, aclient asks you to “heal my broken heart.”In this case, you have express permissionto work on his “broken heart” andwhatever you see that is related to thatissue. You do not necessarily have permissionto go beyond that. However, it isnot unusual to ask the helping spirits forhealing for one thing, and have anotherseemingly unrelated issue surface. Someshamanic practitioners feel that if theyhave a client’s permission for healing forone thing, that permission extends toa general permission for healing. Othersconfine themselves to healing onlywhat was requested. Though the issue ofpermission is somewhat flexible and eachshamanic healer has to decide, in consultationwith the spirits, what to do in anactual circumstance, it is best to err onthe side of caution. Fortunately, in mostcases you can simply ask the client if theywant you to address the additional issue.Since clients come to you for shamanichealing, shamanic healing is whatthey should receive. Until you become amaster in more than one healing discipline,it has been my experience that tryingto combine two or more modalitiessimply weakens the power of the healing.Shamanic healing has its own uniquepower – in the hands of an experiencedpractitioner it is usually sufficient toget the job done. As to ordinary realityinteractions during a healing session, eventhough you really want to help, resist theimpulse to offer advice, therapy, medicaldiagnoses, legal suggestions, relationshipcounseling, conflict resolution, etc. If youfeel these things might help the client,suggest that they may want to obtain additionalhelp from a trained professionalin these fields.I am sometimes asked about working

with animals. I apply the same guidelinesI use with people to my work withanimals. I journey to the animal’s souland I ask for permission.

Distance Work

Shamanic healing works in a dimensionbeyond space and time, making itpossible to offer this method effectivelyat a distance, without being in the presenceof the client.Lately there has been a proliferationof requests for distance shamanichealing, often communicated via emailor in drumming circles. This has vastlyincreased the opportunity for peopleto receive shamanic healing and has ledto some impressive miracles of healing. Ithas also made the question of permissioneven more critical – and harder to knowfor certain that it has been obtained.There are many kinds of “non-local”healing requests one can receive: forprayers, sending light, holding a specificintention – world peace, for example– and many others. While these requestshave their own ethical considerations, Iam not addressing them in this article,which is limited to the ethical practice ofshamanic healing and divination.When a request for shamanic healingis made, whether by email, phone, or in agroup or drumming circle, permission isstill essential. The same rules that applyfor work face-to-face with an individualclient extend to distance healing. The per-son requesting healing must have givenhis or her informed, express, consent forthe healing – and to have their informationreleased to a group for a healingdone by a group.It is particularly important when doingwork in drumming circles or throughgroup emails to do only the work thatwas requested. So, if a person asks fordivination help, only divination workconfined to the question that was askedshould be done. If a specific healing isrequested, follow the parameters set forthe healing.For example, if the request is for a“successful knee-replacement surgery,with minimal pain and fast recovery,”there is no need for you to also ask for“release of fear,” a competent surgeon, andso on. Respect the distant client’s right todefine what they need.Lastly, especially when working viaemail, if you receive information thatneeds to be communicated to the client,communicate it privately – typicallythrough the person who made the request– not as a reply to the group. Even usingemail, maintaining the client’s privacy isan important consideration, and is notguaranteed.What about requests to help withnatural or man-made disasters? The issueof permission can be particularly confusingin these cases, especially if you aredealing with another country and culture,whose ways and people are unfamiliar.Permission is still essential in these cases,but permission from whom or what? Ifyou want to help, it is necessary to makean initial shamanic journey to the placein the Middle World where the incidentoccurred. Ask the spirits of the place andany souls you contact if they want help– always ask before doing any work. Ifyou receive permission to help, then youcan engage in shamanic healing withinthe scope of the permission you receive,with the assistance of your helping spirits.Occasionally, I have seen requests todo shamanic work to influence a specificoutcome in the larger world – elect acertain candidate to public office, “openthe heart” of a person in power, evenstop a war, etc. There is no permissionfor shamanic work in these cases, whichare beyond the scope of ethical shamanicpractice and, however well-intentioned,border on sorcery.Even working with something likethe weather has ethical considerations. Ifyou work to “end a drought” or to bringrain, for example, this work can alsoaffect surrounding areas in unintendedways. The Earth is a whole, a living organism– everything we do has consequences,everything we do affects everything else,for good or ill.Healing is a profound and many-layeredundertaking. Often the right thingto do is ambiguous and difficult to define– even more so because there is so muchneed, we care so much, and really want tohelp.If there is any doubt about whether itis appropriate to offer shamanic healing,the simple answer is to ask the intendedrecipient, whether it be a person, animal,or place. If you do not receive clear permission,do not proceed unless and untilyou do. If you receive permission, thenwork closely with your helping spirits,stay within the parameters of the request,and do the work.

A Notes

1. I wish to acknowledge and thankmy teachers – Michael Harner, SandraHarner, and Alicia Gates – for their wisdomand guidance in the ethical practiceof shamanic healing and divination.Susan Mokelke, J.D., is the ExecutiveDirector of the Foundation. She is anFSS Faculty Member and a graduate ofthe Three-Year Program.Here are a few scenarios of shamanichealing ethical problems, some from myown practice and others related to me byclients or colleagues. Each raises issuesof permission, which may be consideredfrom the standpoint of the ethical responsibilitiesof a shamanic practitioner.A client asks for a shamanic divinationto determine when a seriously illrelative might die.An exercise class instructor decidesto offer a healing meditation at theend of a class. She instructs the participantsto pair up. Then she offersa kind of guided visualization. Sheasks the pairs to send healing firstto each other, then to each other’sfamily members, then to the world. Ashamanic healer is in the class.A client claims she was sexuallyharassed and asks for shamanic helpdealing with it. After the session, thepractitioner telephones someone whoknows the man in question to findout if it could be true, and what sheshould advise her client to do about it.(Consider: Would it make any differenceif the practitioner had the client’spermission to ask the other person?)In a journey, a shamanic practitionermeets the soul of a dead relative. Thedeceased relative asks the practitionerto perform a shamanic healing for aliving person.A shamanic practitioner, after consultingwith her helping spirits, journeysto the scene of a natural disasteroutside of her own country and immediatelybegins to do psychopompwork. (Consider: What if anothershamanic practitioner tells her that hereceived permission to do the work– either from the spirits at the site orfrom his helping spirits?)A client requests help in resolvinga conflict she has with a neighbor.Without intending it, during thesession the shamanic healer receivespersonal information about theneighbor that could be important forthe client to know. He tells the clientthe information.A client requests shamanic help indealing with a dispute he has witha business colleague. The shamanicpractitioner tells him he shouldconsider filing a lawsuit against thecolleague.A person asks for psychopomp workto be done for a close relative. Thedeceased person’s other relatives arestrongly opposed to it.